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[VexalUntil]

I have a few problems with this study. For one, they said they "proved that adults and preschool children have an extraordinary ability to quickly pinpoint snakes amid harmless distractions." (third paragraph) In a valid scientific study you do not PROVE anything, even with statistics. You can support or falisfy the evidence, but you cannot prove it.

Also finding a correlation between age and the ability to pick out a picture of a snake does not necessarily mean that humans are predisposed to have a fear of snakes. The article didn't specifically state this, but it's implied. There could be another reason besides "fear" that causes us to recognize a snake amid other objects. In statistics this other reason is called a lurking variable. I have a hunch that if the same study was run using a group of ophidiophobes, people from this site, a group of comprised of half ophidiophobes and half snake lovers, and a group that doesn't care either way the results would be very similar to the results from this study.

Also like Luka and SugarBear said, what about those of us who do not show a fear of snakes? Wouldn't we still have a gene floating around somewhere that would have caused our fear? And I know there are people here who have gotten over their fear of snakes to actually have the desire to own them as pets.

I personally think that it's mainly caused by parental and cultural influences. There has to be some genetic basis to recognize what a snake is at an early age and this study does support that hypothesis. But it does not link association with an innate fear. Fears IMO are learned not genetic.